Bulldog spirit of escapers from the Nazis

The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday January 9, 2005 In the article below we said that fighter pilot Douglas Bader crashed-landed behind enemy lines in 1941. Bader actually baled out over occupied France after his aircraft was damaged in a dogfight. He was aged 31 at the time, and not, as we said, 25. Peter Butterworth squirmed through the narrow tunnel. Ahead lay freedom, and with it the tantalising prospect of an early return to Blighty. Moments later, the young airman would emerge to breathe in the cool German night air: he would be free.

It was the summer of 1941 and the 25-year-old, who later attained fame as a comic stooge in the Carry On films, had escaped from one of the most notorious Nazi prison camps. For a further three days, he trekked stealthily across country until seized by secret police 27 miles from the tunnel entrance.

Butterworth's brief flirtation with liberation is one of 80,000 accounts from British Second World War captives contained in declassified government documents released to the National Archives in Kew, west London, today. Described by historians as a crucial insight into the trauma of wartime captivity, the most striking theme to emerge is the extraordinary culture of escapology.

Butterworth started another five tunnels after incarceration at Stalag Luft III. Fellow inmates who would secure similar levels of fame included Rupert Davies, who played the Parisian detective in the Sixties television series Maigret. Davies also made repeated attempts to escape; his greatest triumph came when he sprinted clear of the compound before being 'caught by three sentries'.

Ironically, another famous actor, whose best-known role was that of a prisoner of war bent on escape, never did try to evade his captors, although he did suffer 'hardships' during captivity, according to the for merly top secret documents. Twenty years after spending eight months in Stalag Luft I, Donald Pleasence would play the bespectacled document forger in the 1963 prisoner-of-war film The Great Escape .

Their tales are contained in 50 boxes of questionnaires that servicemen were given by British intelligence officers on liberation to shed light on their experiences in prison camps.

Examples of heroism abound. Among them are the celebrated exploits of Wing Commander Douglas Bader. In 1941, he crash-landed behind enemy lines and was arrested. Despite his two artificial legs, Bader, then 25, retained a healthy appetite for escape and managed to flee his hospital and evade capture for two nights. Eventually, his efforts to escape Colditz became so frenetic that his captors were driven to remove his legs every night.

Charles Upham, 35, was another determined escaper, making 14 tunnelling attempts during his four years in the camps. One notable attempt involved him leaping from a moving train in southern Germany. The impact knocked him unconscious, and when he came round he was still wearing his handcuffs. Yet his sheer persistence to escape would see him awarded with a second Victoria Cross - one of only three men to be twice awarded the highest prize for valour.

Most attempts at freedom ended similarly abruptly. Many were handed over to the Gestapo; others were shot. Some looked so incorrigibly English, even in improvised civilian clothes, they had little chance of securing safe passage back to Britain. Some, however, learnt enough German to impersonate enemy soldiers and march straight through prison camp gates. According to Alan Bowgen, the expert on prisoners of war at the National Archives, fewer than 100 made it back.

Servicemen fighting in Asia shared the enthusiasm for escape, despite the risk of torture being far greater in Japanese camps. At least 30,000 accounts from British troops caught by the Japanese are among those released this week. They include the testimony of Eric Lomax, author of The Railway Man, which described the systematic torture he suffered while working on the notorious Burma-Siam line, later immortalised in the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai .

Another theme of the records is the extent to which Allied prisoners continued the war effort during captivity. Many practised sabotage: some ruined aeroplane engines while working as labourers in Munich's BMW factory; others derailed trains as they stood in sidings.